Georgia Elections
By Alana Esposito
The results are in and the 2020 election season is (finally) over. In Georgia, Democrats won both seats from Republican incumbents. Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff beat Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, respectively, in their runoff elections. It’s a historic moment for Reverend Warnock— he will be Georgia’s first Black Senator. Jon Ossoff will be the youngest Senator elected since Joe Biden in 1976. And for the first time in 16 years, Georgia will have two Democratic Senators.
In much needed good news, the Democratic Party will control the Senate. Giving them a hold on the three seats of power: they will have control in both chambers of Congress and the Presidency, making meaningful legislative action on the Biden Administration’s top priorities in reach. Despite the Senate now being split 50-50, because Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, a former Senator from California, will be the tie breaking vote, a role we can expect her to fulfill often, the Democrats will be in the majority. This means that Mitch McConnell, the Senator from Kentucky and (soon, former) Senate Majority Leader, will not be able to keep bills from coming to the floor and interfere in the democratic process. McConnell had blocked COVID-19 relief, gun control legislation, health care reform, climate change legislation, a SCOTUS nominee, election security, and countless others. He once remarked in Kentucky via CNN, “If I'm still the majority leader of the Senate, think of me as the Grim Reaper. None of that stuff is going to pass. None of it.” McConnell’s era of control and obstruction is over.
The win in Georgia comes from the remarkable organizing that exploded after Stacy Abram’s run for governor in 2018. Much of this organizing was done by Black Georgians, who turned out enthusiastically to vote, helping to cement a win for the Democrats. Georgia, a state with a history of suppressing and disenfranchising Black voters, had not been considered a battleground in 2016 and voted for Trump, as expected. But a push for higher turnout, especially in Black communities, gave Biden the win in 2020, both in the general election, and during the runoffs. Georgia has proven that the Democrat's future lies in diverse coalitions. Biden would do well to remember who put him where he is and who gave him a Congress he could work with to meet the needs of his constituents— particularly the Black voters who had been marginalized in Democratic policy discussions in the past.